Monday, August 19, 2013

Happier in the Philippines!!

Hello everyone!! Well.. The Philippines ain't so bad after all!!! Haha! My companion is Elder Olbes from Duvao! He speaks English so we have nothing to worry about! Haha he has been out for about 11 months and will hit his year mark next month. He just finished training an American Elder so it isn't too weird for him to have to speak English a lot and do a lot of translating, which is good for me. He is a super awesome companion. He is really quiet, but he is very obedient. And that makes me more happy than anything. I love that he just wants to work. This week was a way good week! I was a little bit nervous that it would be a disastrous first week for the transfer because I didn't know the area at all, but it turns out that I knew more than I gave myself credit for because I got us around the area just fine! We talked about it and we decided that the best way for us to go forward is to work through the ward council and the members. Tracting isn't a good thing for us because my companion is super shy and I don't know Tagalog so working through the members is super important.. Does anyone have some good ideas as to an effective way to get referrals? I think the best way to learn how to get referrals is to ask some members, so if any one can help that would be awesome! My companion and I were able to go to Ward Council Meeting and talk with the ward council about the missionary work that is going on and we took about twenty minutes giving a detailed report from our side about what was going on in the ward. One of the ward missionaries turned to me after we sat down and said that the ward is excited that they have missionaries that are taking things serious. The past missionaries had good relationships with the ward, but weren't doing anything serious for about a year now. So we gained their trust and we hope to run with it! It's amazing the turn-around that has happened for me. I was so miserable last week, but now I think that I might actually miss serving here in the Philippines! Our new chapel for my ward opens this week and that makes us very excited because before it took about an hour to get to church, so it was hard for our less-actives and investigators to come to church, but now it will only take about twenty minutes to get to, so we are really hoping to get some serious work going on up in here! Well, that's all for my weekly report this week. Love you! Elder Head